I think this was the sort of scenario I was alluding to in a post yesterday. Could a strong southerly positioned jet stream help us in the long run by steering lows well south and bring cold air in around the north side of these lows. Therefore the initial damage from the US cold, strengthening jet as a consequence could be of benefit to our quest for cold.

Ironic after last summer’s drought and wild fires: is this GW in action? I guess the patterns are emerging and demonstrating that it is.

Maybe some logic to that. But I'm quite optimistic for February think we have a better chance than normal. 

Frankly I don’t have the energy for another chase, but looks like I am going to have to put myself through it. All eyes on the 06z.

Interesting... 

We'd often think a potential heatwave was being picked up if we had several members suddenly climb away from the pack during summer, but will the same logic apply for divers during winter?? I guess it's doubtful, but certainly something worth watching.... 

GFS Op - Omits the Rockall centre; by Thu 29th the other part has stuck over W Ireland with S/SE winds for Britain. Having got to Ireland, it doesn't go anywhere but slowly fills so by Mon 2nd Britain is under slack LP. New LP moves in Thu 5th 970mb Bristol Channel with some colder air from NE entrained. By Mon 9th, Britain has HP by default with LP to N, SW and SE. HP over Greenland (suspiciously high -  a model artefact?) and Kazakhstan throughout, W Europe the playground of LP.

ECM - moves the LP around from Thu 29th to Mon 2nd, from W Scotland to S England but like GFS in that pressure is low off the W coast and Mon 2nd there is the same slack LP. By Thu 5th this model has slid in an extended trough but to the SW like GFS but weaker and on Mon 9th again Britain is between LPs though that to the SE contributes little

AIFS - London, progressive decline of maxima from 7C now to ice days from Wed 4th, a little rain in the meantime. Edinburgh, also declines but doesn't quite make ice days, non-stop rain. Both locations feature E-lies (London SE-ly at first). Not like the other models.

GEFS - mean temp and ens members close to norm throughout but a few cold outliers in first week of Feb, lots of rain in the SW, elsewhere in the S rain mostly around 27th and 3rd but never really dry, in the N less of a peak but always likely to be damp. Snow row figures unexciting

I said a couple of weeks ago. As soon as the US goes into freezer mode, all but curtains for us. (Not exclusively, as US and UK can have cold spells in continuity but more often than not, we end up blasted by Atlantic)

The US severe cold has been modelled without much deviation for a while, shows how a small island like the UK often poorly forecasted at range vs large land mass that's called weeks in advance and is well documented ahead of a pattern change 

I've no energy to take interest into February,  although I never have. 

We've not had a below 3C February for 30 years (1996), and sub 3C isn't even cold. February has been exceptionally mild and you know its desperate when you hear SSW as the saviour. 

The brighter skies of early January and the deep deep snow are now just fond memories. 

More widely the outlook from the NWP output remains generally unsettled, unpleasant and (unless things change) also not wintry.

And yes, the BBC app was completely wrong even to within 2 days. 

Call me a cynic , but is the AI model run by the social media companies? Loves to show a lovely easterly beast at day 10 , does create a lot of sensational headlines and clickbait on social media platforms 😁. 

I'm a huge sceptic when it comes to the AI pattern matching models. I know they have a couple of very focal supporters amongst this congregation, but I can't for the life of me see why! 

Apparently they return decent verification stats, though I assume those stats are based on NH patterns? If so, they don't appear to mean much when evaluating their ability to predict outcomes on our little island! If for example the consistent easterlies predicted by ECM AI had come to pass, this winter would locally have been the best since '81! 

I've noticed that on both the GFS and ECM ensembles in recent days. But it's only ever a very small number of ensemble members, and it always seems to be just a brief dive lasting only a day or two, with no indication of any prolonged cold spell.

We only have to look back eight years to see what is still possible - though admittedly very unlikely - even at the very end of February., so I wouldn't give up all hope.

What I find interesting about that link is not just the cold cluster but the fact the mean sticks closely to or below the long term average throughout and that's been a fairly consistent theme since the first half of December. That's a marked contrast to most of last year when the mean was rarely below average and never to the end of timeframe. Possibly a sign that the effects of the marine heatwave are finally dissapating.

So often wet (and miserable), temps average to chilly south to north (mostly) and wintry stuff probably confined to higher ground of Wales, Northern England and Scotland as LPs wander over the UK, get divorced from the jet and then spin back into the Atlantic (some hints of LPs heading south in to Europe I guess too in the mid term). 

There continues to be some cold members in both GFS/ECM ens suites, albeit a minority and if you were using ECM 0z set for London, milder than average longer term looks more likely than below average until maybe the very end of the run. (MOGREPS has picked a few colder stragglers up too this morning). 

If I had to guess at the reason there's some more interesting solutions cropping up early Feb it'd be due to the cold moderating over the states and a weakening but still south shifted jet:-

Allied to the cold remaining over Scandi it'd be surprising not to see some members managing to bring colder air over the UK more widely but at the moment it remains a weak signal set against strong agreement for temps much closer to average. Still, if anyone has the energy for another rainbow chase a couple of ens sets with a stronger colder cluster wouldn't be too much of a surprise so worth keeping a small part of one's eyeball on. 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=1&model=gfs&var=1&run=6&time=210&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=6#mapref 

https://modeles16.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2026012406/gens-0-1-162.png 

It is of course just for amusement value and unlikely to be there in later runs (although I think ECM had it last night too iirc) but shows there's some cherry picking fun available still and backs up that there's still enough rainbows around if required. 

For fans of early spring I can't see any really mild stuff in the charts, with around 11-12c in London looking to be the highest although from a southern POV you can really start feeling the warmth in the sunshine now and last Sunday's 11c and sunny interlude did feel most agreeable.

That same set up in Summer would potentially give us weeks of very warm/hot but humid/thundery conditions, something that is hard to set up and get going when we want it the most. Just like there are weeks of north easterlies in Spring and early Summer when we want it the least. 😂

Otherwise it's a continuation of a particularly nasty spell of weather for down here. Repeat on Mon/Tues and again later in week.

My gut instinct tells me this next chase *could* be worth the effort. 

Reasons to be optimistic? Well the cold block isn't shown to be blasted away like so many have in the past, then there are hints that the jet profile may become more favourable once the US cold spell abates. I think I'll devote 3/4's of an eyeball to this one for the time being, then possibly one full optic from next Monday should the signal still be there. 

1. They say it takes a couple goes to get an easterly.  The damp dross from the east just now is first go. Its a cold wind, but not snow cold.

2. Used to be said, when it was in the news about eastern USA getting a cold blast, then we'd get it a couple weeks later. Traditionally we'd hear about it after the event, but modern forecasting and news means we know about the event in USA before it happens, so I'm saying a little over 2 weeks.

 LLTNP 105m asl 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=1&model=gfs&var=2&time=354&run=6&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=6 

GFS op also building a decent looking Scandi high

Could be the start of a pattern change, also could be a rogue run! Anyway something interesting to look at